In land clearing operations, it is necessary to break up any debris into pieces small enough that it can be accommodated by equipment subsequently used to till the soil. The debris to be pulverized may include anything from brush to trees. Normally, larger trees are disposed of in other ways, but land clearing operations with which the present invention is intended to cope frequently involve trees, or tree branches, up to as large as four to six inches or so in diameter.
Some prior devices with which I am familiar utilize the ground as an anvil to support the debris for cutting into small pieces by blades on a rotor. This approach works fairly well if the ground is hard, or relatively so, but is completely ineffective if the ground is soft since, under such conditions, the cutting blades merely push the debris, or much of it, downwardly into the soft soil, and fail to break it up.
Another type of device with which I am familiar involves the use of wheel supported, and wheel or power driven, rotary cutters operating against pickup fingers which deliver the debris to the cutters. Devices of this nature operate much more effectively than those of the type discussed in the preceding paragraph, but are relatively complicated.
Prior United States patents with which I am familiar, and which disclose devices of the foregoing two types, include:
______________________________________ 843,479 Becerra 1,865,686 Gilson 1,156,234 Jones 2,553,356 Cady 1,639,837 Burner 2,974,472 Gebhart 1,786,455 Robbins 3,121,987 Harris ______________________________________